This past weekend Joel Epstein, Huff Po columnist and consultant for Move LA, put together a gathering of local movers and shakers with the goal of energizing Angelenos on the 30/10 Initiative. Wary about Congress loaning the needed funds in the current divisive political climate, Epstein hopes gatherings like his will incite private investors to help fund the cause.

A BBC reporter decided to see whether taking the bus or driving to work stressed him out more. The answer? The bus trip started with a lot of stress (getting to the bus, waiting for the bus, wondering if the bus will ever come) but got less stressful as the trip went on whereas the car trip started easy but got increasingly stressful with time.

The transit Measure R projects get a lot of digital ink around here, but Streetsblog takes a look at a $6-billion highway project in North County that will use $33-million in Measure R funds for the environmental study. The “High Desert Corridor” project is one of the few highway projects in SoCal that actually involves building a brand new freeway. The highway is being planned — it’s not fully funded — in hopes of accommodating a three to six fold increase in traffic in North County and giving truck traffic a detour around the L.A. Basin.

It’s always interesting to see what transit riders are facing in other regions, and this story from San Francisco may offer a useful lesson when it comes to TAP. San Francisco’s transit agency, Muni, recently stopped allowing riders to use cash to pay for tickets in underground Metro stations (which are equipped with fare gates). Instead, riders must use their Clipper cards (a smartcard much like TAP). The catch is, while rail station vending machines sell limited-use cards, there’s a surcharge of 25-cents to buy the card – increasing the fare from $2 to $2.25. The agency feels the surcharge is just that, and the vendor actually charges 35-cents per card so the agency is losing money on it, but some riders see it as nothing more than a fare increase.